


Blue Blooded

by Shachaai



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Cardverse, Discrimination, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Deck of the Kingdom of Spades has finally found its long-looked-for Queen - and of course, there just HAS to be something 'wrong' with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Blooded

They’ve spent so _long_ searching for the latest destined Queen of Spades that, when Yao bursts through the doors of Alfred’s study in an unusual state of harried disarray and pants the long-awaited announcement of _‘we’ve found the Queen,’_ the startled King immediately drops everything he’s doing (quite relieved at the unexpected break – accounts of the grain harvest may be exceedingly important, but they’re _incredibly boring_ ) and leaps to his feet.

“Where is she?” A Deck without a Queen amongst it is woefully incomplete, and that feeling of something vital being _missing_ had gouged a hole deep in Alfred’s heart the moment Yao, his Jack, and the first among their number to have been found and assume his royal duties, had laid the golden King’s Crown of Spades upon Alfred’s head. To have that emptiness filled at last is a cause for celebration, jubilation – and yeah, temporarily abandoning the dreaded accounts of the grain harvest is pretty sweet too.

“ _He,_ ” Yao corrects, attempts to straighten his hat from where it’s slid to the side in all his haste, tucking back strands of his raven-dark hair. Alfred just shrugs – a pretty girl hanging off of his arm at ceremonial and social functions might’ve been nice, but Hearts also has a great male Queen and _their_ King and kingdom prospers for the guy’s clear head – but Yao’s pinched expression fails to be smoothed. “And he is currently in the Cerulean Receiving Room, but – _Alfred!”_

Alfred has already pushed past Yao, and is haring along the corridor to the Receiving Room with incredible speed. Past experience has taught Yao many a time that there’s absolutely _no_ catching up with the King when Alfred’s going at full tilt – and so he stands in the doorway of Alfred’s study somewhat despairingly, and yells after him.

_“Alfred, there is a problem!”_ The King either doesn’t hear Yao or simply doesn’t care, disappearing around a distant bend in the corridor. “ _Ai_ - _yah_ …” Sighing to himself, Yao readjusts his hat a little more and hurries after Alfred to work on damage control.

Honestly, it’s like working with _children._

 

 

 

 

The Cerulean Receiving Room is dim with lamplight when Alfred first dives through its doors (somewhat glad that, for once, there isn’t a set of guards outside the room like there _usually_ is when an important guest is visiting the Palace, guards that have to formally acknowledge the presence of the King and bow a bit before letting Alfred in. Far too much effort to go through). He’s a little out of breath after his high-speed dash, thoughts clanging around in his head and distracting him from immediately noticing the drawn curtains. The slim man seated staring at him from one of the room’s many couches, however –

“You’re the Queen?” Alfred beams in welcome and crosses the room in great strides – the stranger, seeing the King’s approach, hastily puts down the teacup he’d been holding, rising to his feet in a flustered rush to face the royal head-on.

“Your Majesty -”

“You’re the Queen?” Alfred asks again, interrupting the other. So close, so close, the excitement is eating up his insides with an explosion of hopeful butterflies. He drinks in the sight of the stranger before him like a man dying of thirst, lingers on all the smooth lines of an outfit well-tailored and the attitude around the sharp mouth that says the newcomer doesn’t get interrupted a great lot. The guy’s probably of the gentility then, if not the nobility, with the sort of pale skin that says he doesn’t see the sun very much.

The stranger bows lowly, crisp and effortless in a way Alfred _still_ can’t manage even after three years’ worth of deportment classes and Yao poking at his slouching spine with a really bony finger. “Sire -”

“I asked you a question,” Alfred says a little impatiently. (He’s never been fond of the bowing thing. It’s nice to see people’s eyes when he’s talking to them, not the top of their head.) “Have you the Queen’s Mark?” The stranger straightens up – _slowly –_ and nods. “Show it to me.”

The stranger immediately goes pink. “Sire, I really don’t think -”

“That’s an _order._ ”

Living in one of the great outer towns of the kingdom Alfred himself had been ordered to strip and bare the King’s Mark on his upper back a countless amount of times to have its veracity tested. Of course, only really being a few short steps above ‘farm-boy’ on the social ladder before his discovery and coronation, Alfred had already been pretty accustomed to shedding his shirt whenever he’d felt like it – the American counties had always had hot summers, and wearing too many layers when the heat was baking the dirt and everything unfortunate to be standing on it had been _unbearable._

Things are… _different_ with the gentility up, Alfred has learned; it’s all gloves and high collars and buttons all down the wrist. Modesty – or at least the _appearance_ of it – is firmly stressed, stressed, stressed _again_ when Alfred unknots his tie a few minutes too soon when there’s still company in the room and has Yao almost immediately _choke_ him with it redoing the knot again.

And so it is Alfred _gets_ why his likely-Queen is glaring death at him with amazingly bright green eyes – gets it and _doesn’t_ _care_ , keenly watching as the other does as he’s been bid by his sovereign and carefully tugs at the beautiful cream ribbon tied around his throat, pulling out the bow. The ribbon discarded on the abandoned couch, the stranger goes to undo the laces of his shirt – he’s glowering fiercely at Alfred and wearing a furious flush all the while his deft fingers work, clearly displeased at having his honour so wounded. Alfred just grins back at him, unrepentant and fascinated by the sharp cut of the other’s collarbone as it’s revealed to him, the first beginnings of dark blue-black lines against the stranger’s snow-white skin.

The King’s Mark spreads like birds’ wings between Alfred’s shoulder-blades, a middle-sized blue-black spade that splits at the sides, emblazoned with the royal _K._ The (this) Queen’s Mark is different, if a little hard to see in the awful light (seriously, what was with the shut curtains?) – dark thorns, rather than feathers, seem to anchor the spade symbol deep into its bearer’s chest, the royal _Q_ worn just off-centre in the stranger’s chest, over his heart.  

Over the _Queen’s_ heart.

The longer Alfred looks at the Queen’s Mark the more it seems to change, soften and pinken at the edges and –

Oh.

The gentility blush easily, it seems – the angry flush adorning Alfred’s Queen has travelled down the guy’s cheeks and throat to stain his chest, making his hot glare burn all the hotter when Alfred raises his eyes from the other’s bare chest to meet the Queen’s gaze.

“If Your Majesty has finished _gawping,_ ” _oooh,_ that’s a snarl, all clipped ‘round the edges in a way that drips poison _class,_ “may I now re-clothe myself?”

“In a sec.” Alfred wants to see the Mark better this once if he’s never going to see the thing again – so he seizes his companion’s wrist before the uncrowned Queen can do anything other than let out an indignant noise of affront, pulling the other over towards the nearest window and flinging back the curtains.

Sunlight streams into the room immediately, bright and strong – and the Queen, caught in the abrupt brightness by Alfred’s firm grip, cries out in _pain._ Alfred turns to stare at him, startled at the sudden cry, and stares some _more_ at the way a painfully furious _red_ is blotching rapidly over the other’s skin –

“ _Alfred, shut the curtains!!”_ Yao’s at the door, a high note of panic in his voice – and Alfred gropes behind himself blindly, feels cloth and _pulls._

Dimness – darkness – returns to the room with a _swish_ , as suddenly disorientating as the light. Yao hurries forward in a quick patter of steps, breaks Alfred’s hold with a trained slap on the King’s wrist and – and Alfred finds himself liberated of his not-quite Queen, blinking to try and make his eyes adapt to the change in light.

“Are you alright, my lord?” Yao leads their…the newest of their number to his couch, presses worried hands to the other’s arms when the guy flinches away from fingers near the raw-looking skin on his face, neck, chest. “If there is anything that can be brought to aid the healing -”

“Just – some of my tea, please. I find myself somewhat dehydrated -” the Queen-to-be has his abandoned teacup put back in his hands before he can finish his sentence, Yao carefully topping up the liquid inside with tea from the nearby pot. There’s still enough heat left in it to curl steam into the air, heavy with the sweet scent of jasmine.

Alfred frowns at them both, at his Jack’s strange doting care and his Queen-to-be’s odd burns. “What the hell is going on?”

Yao sighs. “Your Majesty, I _tried_ to tell you -”

_“You just tried to kill me._ ” There’s no deference left in the voice of Alfred’s one-day Queen as he looks up at the King, all snarl and more than a hint of gleaming teeth. “If you _truly_ loathed the idea of one of my kind entering the Deck so badly -”

“He did not know better,” Yao tries to assure the other, quiet.

“A likely story!”

“A _true_ story, aru,” Yao insists, even as Alfred, frustrated and confused, demands answers.

“ _What_ story?!” He’s sick of feeling lost in this conversation.

The Queen-to-be sets down his cup with a _clatter._ “Oh, you _bloody fool -”_

“ _Hey!”_ Alfred scowls. “Whatever happened just now was a _total accident,_ and I’m sorry you got burnt or whatever, but I -” Alfred stops. Looks at the man beside his Jack again. Blinks. Looks some more. “…Your burns are fading.”

“They do that.” Irritably, the other starts lacing up his shirt again, movements short and jerky. “But I would be all the _better_ had I not received them in the first place.”

“Dude, all I did was _open the curtain_ to see you a bit b-” the coin drops for Alfred at last, the gears turning in his head and finally clicking into the right place. “Sunlight burns you. You – you’re a _vampire_?”

His Queen-to-be _glowers_ at him and – and yeah, now Alfred’s looking for them he can see the edge of fangs in the other man’s mouth, sharp and white. And with such pale skin and bright eyes…

_“I,_ ” says the vampire, vampire Queen, oh, _damn,_ “am Lord Arthur Kirkland, Blue Mage, and yes, yes I am.” 

 

 

 

 

In three out of the Four Kingdoms on the great Suit continents, vampires are considered second-class citizens. In the fourth kingdom, Clubs, vampires are not considered citizens at all, sub-human; there is a law in place to have them all forcibly expelled from the cold kingdom should any of them be found there – those that resist deportation can be put to death immediately, without trial.

In Spades, things are a _little_ better. Vampires are technically entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other citizen, but rarely claim them or are freely given them. It’s standard practice to prioritise the ‘normal’ citizens – if a vampire and a mortal both apply for the same job, most will immediately expect the job to be given to the mortal. If a vampire and a mortal both need serving – be it in a bar, restaurant, or shop - , the mortal is usually served first. If a vampire and a mortal are both in need of medical attention and there is only one doctor…

Vampires are required, upon their creation, to enter their details into one of the kingdom’s ‘special’ registries, like all certified mages (levels White through Blue). Whereas the registry for the mages, however, generally keeps track of those persons in case their individual talents are needed for academic, scientific or military reasons, the registry for the vampires carefully watches those persons in case there are any suspicious murders in a particular vampire-filled area, or should blood-stocks go missing.

Vampires, in Spades, are regarded with hate, distrust and jealousy for their abilities, seen as leeches and dangerous parasites. The ones who keep to the legal side of things often buy their blood, exchanging their talents for their next necessary meal – often sparsely and reluctantly given, and charged dearly for. Those that give up on legality out of rage or necessity often turn to assault and/or murder – and so the jails are often thronged with hungry, desperate vampires (some of them there, even the most biased guards know, due to being framed. It is remarkably easy to frame a vampire for murder – if the victim is drained of blood and a vampire without a totally spotless record lives nearby, the vampire will quite often be the one blamed).

Clubs had once had a vampire King, hundreds and hundreds of years ago whose reign ended in a bloody massacre, and Hearts has lost some of its most ancient records about its earliest Decks. There are rumours that Diamonds had once had a vampire Jack, but she had been assassinated at the orders of the Queen of the time, and a new Deck had been assembled. There has never – _never_ since the Four Kingdoms were first founded _–_ been a vampire amongst the Deck of Spades before.

Understandably, Yao’s tearing his hair out about the whole matter. It’s a PR _nightmare –_ the Decks are chosen by the Great Clocks of the kingdom, by their unfathomable magic and by fate itself. To announce to the populace of Spades that fate has chosen a _vampire_ for their Queen –

Some things are only deemed acceptable because, whilst there may be a _possibility_ of them happening (and the _possibility_ makes everything just and humane, morally and ethically fair), they _haven’t actually happened yet._ When they actually _do_ happen…prejudice rears its ugly head, and things invariably go very, _very_ wrong.

“They’re just gonna have to deal with it,” Alfred tells his Jack, watching the other wear a hole in his study carpet with his worried circling. “The Clocks have already done their…magical mumbo-jumbo thing, so unless we can reverse _that_ -”

“There is not a way to tamper with the power of the Clocks!” Yao throws up his hands – they’ve been over that point _thousands_ of times already; there’s no way they can get the Clocks to change their ‘minds.’ “To even try to do so would be the highest blasphemy!”

“Yeah, but -”

_“No buts!”_

The only redeeming factor about this whole day, Yao thinks, is that Arthur, the latest bearer of the Queen’s Mark, seems to have a sensible head on his shoulders. After the mess in the Cerulean Receiving Room the Queen-to-be had volunteered to confine himself to assigned chambers (and _sleep,_ he had confessed; vampirism really did lend itself to more nocturnal habits) until a solution had been devised for the whole affair, to keep the Palace rumour-mill to a bare minimum. No-one wants information leaking out to the general public too soon – the kingdom is hardly prepared to deal with a vampire Queen yet, not when the Jack and _King_ still don’t know how to deal with one.

(It is…somewhat depressing that Arthur expects everyone to make such a terrible deal about his vampirism. Yao had tried to be optimistic, to suggest that Arthur’s coronation and official instalment in the Deck would be smooth – and Arthur had just smiled, weary and rueful, and Yao had stopped trying to convince the other of something they both knew to be false.)

“Then if we can’t change the _Clocks,_ we can’t change _him._ ” Alfred has his arms folded across his chest, expression edging towards ‘mutinous.’ “Because the only way to get rid of a Deck member is to kill ‘em and replace the _whole_ Deck – and I’m not ordering anybody dead just ‘cause they get bad sunburn.”

“I never _suggested -_ ”

“ _Nobody’s even gonna_ think _it._ ” Alfred scowls. “I swear, when news gets out, if anyone so much as _breathes_ that idea and I hear about it, I’m draggin’ them up for attempted murder.”

Carefully, Yao approaches his King, laying a hand on the youth’s arm. Alfred is…young. Alfred is young and earnest, and, despite his many faults, honestly tries to do his best for his people. For _all_ his people. It is why Yao still serves the boy-man so diligently – Alfred genuinely wants change, and change for the better.

“I will support you,” Yao promises his King, and watches Alfred’s scowl soften slightly, relaxing the stiff lines of the youth’s shoulders into something more malleable. “But we _must_ think of some way to break this to the kingdom, aru. There are still too many who would take this an opportunity to discredit the Decks and monarchy, and go on to launch an attack on the vampires among our population.”

Alfred frowns, thinking. “…We just need to spin the Arthur guy joining us as a _good_ thing, right? Even ignoring his teething problems and sunburn issue. He said he was a mage, right?”

“Blue Level,” Yao confirms with a nod – the highest level attainable for a mage in Spades. And with the Queen stereotypically being a mage (the more powerful the better) - “We could bring that up with the more pro-vampire Lords of the Council, and use it to sway the Lords who are more neutral.”

“And the haters?”  Of which there are plenty. “Threats, bribery and extortion?”

The old standby. Yao just dignifies Alfred’s suggestion with a _look,_ and Alfred grins widely.

(Threats, bribery and extortion it will be.)

“As for the general populace…” Yao sighs, already envisioning the woeful state of the Royal Treasury in the imminent future, “we shall just have to begin a campaign to slowly woo them to our side. Perhaps we could do something at the annual Harvest Ball -”

“…We could invite King Francis.” Yao looks to Alfred inquiringly and the King fidgets in his seat, removing his glasses to polish them on the – untucked – hem of his shirt. “ _All_ the Diamond Deck, even. They’re our neighbours, right? And you’re always saying we should try to better our ‘diplomatic ties’ for the sake of trade and cr-” Yao glares meaningfully, “ _stuff,_ ” Alfred amends. “And they’re… _good_ with the whole _lookin’ good_ thing; if we got _their_ support for our new Queen it might...convince others, I dunno.”

Yao ponders it. “Diamonds _are_ our most like-minded associates when it comes to the vampire populace…” Alfred perks, pleased at finally offering a decent suggestion. “We would have to inform King Francis and Queen Annalise long before their arrival here, you realise – _if_ they even agree to come.”

“They’re gonna find out one way or another.”

“…Very well, aru,” Yao concedes, since the King has made a good point. “We will try your idea.”

It surely cannot make things any _worse_ than they already are.


End file.
